Devil's Punchbowl

Devil's Punchbowl, elevation 4,750', is one of the most fantastic, colorful jumble of rocks in Los Angeles County. It is a
county park within the Angeles National Forest on the northern slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains. There are short trails
within the park which showcase the riot of geologic features along the Punchbowl and San Andreas Faults and there are
connections to the major longer trails going up to the high country.

The Devil's Punchbowl drainage flows into Sandrock Creek and another tributary of
Big Rock Creek
which disappears into the Mojave Desert.

The rock so spectacularly exposed at the Devil's Punchbowl is the Punchbowl Formation made of ~5,000'
of nonmarine light gray sandstone, conglomerate and thin shale strata. The rock was derived from weathering
of granite from the
Mojave Block,
deposited in a formerly flat basin to the south of the Mojave Block, which was subsequently tilted by movement
along the Punchbowl and San Andreas Faults.

The Devil's Punchbowl rock is very similar to the Miocene (7-25 million years old from the Period from Dibblee; a more precise
6-15 million years old from Sharp)
"Mormon Rocks"
formation in
Cajon Pass,
but fossils show that the rock at the
Devil's Punchbowl is younger, with ages of lower Pliocene to upper Miocene (~5-10 million years). Much speculation has been made
about whether these formations were once in juxtaposition, and have been separated by movement along the
San Andreas
and Punchbowl Faults, but the faults are apparently complex enough that it is difficult to agree on a reconstruction. Both
units may once have been next to matching rock to the south of Punchbowl fault that is now 30 miles to the northwest.

By Car: From
SR-138
at
Pearblossom,
go south on Longview Road, N-6, to the Devil's Punchbowl Road. The $3.00 parking fee was cancelled August 1, 1999.

By Trail: The Burkhart Trail comes in from Burkhart Saddle to the southwest. The Punchbowl Trail comes in from South Fork
Campground to the east. These trails are parts of the High Desert National Recreation Trail system. Inside the park itself
are other shorter trails like the Devil's Punchbowl Loop Trail.